


How To Handle A Woman

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Willow (1988)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-31
Updated: 2004-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:39:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1632056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Madmartigan is not asking Willow for advice. Not at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How To Handle A Woman

**Author's Note:**

> Written for alianora

 

 

 

 

Madmartigan didn't need to take advice from a peck. Of course, he didn't need to take advice from anyone, but from a peck least of all.

So he wasn't actually asking Willow Ufgood's advice. He was merely - making conversation.

"And what's that, Elora? I spy something right here -" Willow said as he reached behind 2-year-old Elora's ear and plucked a shining silver coin from her red curls. The little girl squealed with delight, and for a moment, Madmartigan's worries and bruised pride vanished, eclipsed by his adopted daughter's happiness. "Stealing from the Royal Treasury? Hardly befits a princess."

Willow was laughing as he spoke, but the phrase darkened Madmartigan's mood again. As he poured himself another tankard of mead, he muttered, "Perhaps she's tired of minding her manners every moment of the day. Perhaps she'd like to have a bit of fun once in a while."

That earned him a raised eyebrow, and Madmartigan groaned. Yes, he'd meant to talk with Willow about this - just to talk, you know, old compatriots catching up - but that didn't mean he'd expected to like it. Willow sounded altogether too smug as he said, "I think someone may be weary of palace life."

Madmartigan didn't want to agree; well, yes, Willow was right about that, but he didn't really have to admit it now, did he? Instead, he gestured to the other side of the table and refilled Willow's cup. An invitation to drink was as good as an invitation to talk, at least in Madmartigan's book.

They were down in the palace kitchens - in and of itself a violation of protocol, though fortunately Willow was too much of a yokel to know it and Elora was too young to care. When Sorsha found out (and she would, she found out EVERYTHING, as if sorcery ran in the family), he'd get a talking-to. ANOTHER talking-to. But he'd needed to escape. The celebrations for Elora's birthday involved visiting potentates and speeches from village dignitaries and interminable court ceremonies, and Madmartigan had found himself wondering how many of the graybeards he'd have time to behead before the guards could stop him.

This sort of thinking was usually a sign that it was time to get to the kitchens. So he'd taken advantage of the games to bring Elora indoors, and Willow had tagged along.

Well, yes, he'd INVITED Willow along, but there was no point dwelling on that. Beside the point, really.

Outside, he could still hear the cheers of the crowds and the thumping of the drums. "Sounds like they're having fun out there," Willow said, hoisting himself up onto the Daikini-sized bench opposite Madmartigan.

"Fun? Definitely. Nothing's better than jousting. Unless it's swordfighting. After this, they'll have the swordfighting demonstrations. The young men will praise the winners, and the young women -" Oh, what wouldn't they do?

Willow had to lift his goblet with both hands. "So why aren't you watching?

"Watching a fight? I was once the greatest of all swordsmen and jousters, and you think I could be content sitting in the sidelines - watching?"

"You could be fighting. Nobles do compete, don't they?"

Yes, he could be fighting. Wearing Sorsha's colors. But instead he was sullenly drinking mead and wondering if he ought to check Elora's nappy.

"If I had fought," Madmartigan admitted, "I'd have had to throw the fight against the King of Kirpal."

"Bad protocol, humiliating another royal?"

"If you're so smart, you be prince of the realm!"

Willow took no mind of Madmartigan's temper; he never had, which was slightly more convenient than it was annoying. "I have to admit, when Sorsha became queen and you her consort - I did think it an awkward fit."

Madmartigan drew himself up to his full height - not that it was exactly hard to tower over Willow - and glared. It was all well and good for him to decide he wasn't palace material, but a man couldn't let someone ELSE say it. "And why would that be?"

"Because you wear your hair long and your dagger strapped to your leg like a bandit and you curse more than you curtsy and you hate fine manners and fine wine and absolutely anything else too civilized for a stable."

For once, Madmartigan had absolutely nothing to say. Yes, Willow Ufgood was a peck, and a noisome one at that, but he'd just summed the trouble up, no denying it.

Willow, looking altogether too pleased with himself, continued, "You hate everything civilized - except Sorsha."

At that, Madmartigan had to smile. "You don't know her as I do," he insisted. "She's not that civilized." No, not his wild girl. He'd ridden horses with her across the plains, hearing her laugh as they raced faster and faster. He'd sparred with her in the training grounds, dazzled by her smile as her blade met his, move for move and speed for speed. And in bed -

His smile became wider. Sorsha wasn't that civilized at all.

A small cough from the other side of the table reminded Madmartigan that he wasn't alone; the knowing twinkle in Willow's eyes told him that his train of thought had been all too clear. Slightly embarrassed, Madmartigan busied himself with Elora for a moment, smoothing back her red curls as she played with the braided cords that fell from his belt.

"Well, maybe I didn't put that as I should have," Willow said. "Maybe I should have said that Sorsha knows how to be civilized when she needs to be. But you're no fonder of it than you ever were."

"It's like lighting a candle and putting it out again," Madmartigan confessed. "One minute she's the woman I love, the one who likes things just as I do - then a courtier walks in the room, and she's someone else. Someone -" What word could convey his contempt? "Refined. She's the woman I married, and then she's not."

Willow looked altogether too sage for Madmartigan's liking. "Let me tell you something I've learnt from being married to Kaiya. You don't marry just what you love about someone; you marry all of them."

"You're talking off the top of your head." More mead was called for, Madmartigan thought, pouring lavishly. "You and Kaiya don't have a problem in the world."

And it was true; every time Madmartigan had met Willow's gold-braided wife, he'd noticed how the two of them shone in each other's light. This was both why he'd brought the subject up with Willow in the first place and the reason Madmartigan didn't expect him to have anything useful to say. Most of Madmartigan's impulses had an equal and opposite reaction.

"We get on well enough now. But it wasn't always like that." Willow folded his hands atop the oaken table. "I'm always caught up in my dreams. Kaiya's more practical. But she sometimes gets too caught up in her cares and forgets how to have fun, and I never like those moods. Time was when we used to fight about such things - before we learned it made no sense. I love Kaiya, and that means I've got to love all the different Kaiyas she's got inside her skin. Just as she loves all the different Willows in me. Granted, some of them get on her nerves a bit, but she loves me just the same."

Did he love Queen Sorsha, monarch of the realm? Madmartigan remembered how she'd looked when he left the viewing platform with Elora in his arms; she had been wearing a gown of cloud-white silk, edged in silver and emerald, belted just beneath her breasts to better disguise the child she would bear him in winter. Her red curls had been smoothed beneath a coronet, her jewels twinkling around her neck.

But none of her beauty or her grandeur mattered as much as the sadness in her eyes as he edged away.

Perhaps it didn't matter so much that he loved every one of the Sorshas within Sorsha, Madmartigan decided. Perhaps it was more important that every one of them loved him - though there was no telling why.

"I'm being an idiot," Madmartigan confessed.

"No. You're telling me a joke. Pull the other one." Willow's face didn't remain straight for long, and Madmartigan couldn't help laughing even before Willow did. Peck or no, there was something to be said for old friends.

"Right, then. Willow, I know you'd like to spend a little more time with Elora, so how about you watch her for me? Just for the afternoon?"

Willow grinned happily, clambering down to rejoin Elora's games; she responded by wrapping her chubby arms around his waist and chuckling heartily. "With pleasure. But what will you be doing?"

"Throwing a joust to the King of Kirpal."

Embarrassing, yes, but so be it. At least he'd have a horse beneath him and a lance in his hands - and at least he would see Sorsha's smile once more.

And after the King of Kirpal had his false glory, Madmartigan could joust the rest of the day and wipe the smirks off some of these young ones! Maybe compromise was worth it after all.

"Be sure to tell Sorsha that you're doing it for her," Willow said, waving him off. "And don't be afraid to ask for help once in a while! What else are friends for?"

Madmartigan laughed as he strode out toward the field of play. As though he'd ever need advice from Willow Ufgood!

END

 

 

 


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